I Got A New Puppy When Should I Start Training Him?

People often ask me, “I just got a new puppy when shall I start working on his training?” I quickly shoot back, “You should start working on puppy training the moment you bring home your new pup!”

Whether you like it or not puppy training starts on day 1. Your puppy is constantly learning new things. Since your pup is already learning you may as well teach him good behaviors rather than bad behaviors.

Teaching Your Puppy Obedience Training

We started working on Derby’s training the moment we picked him up from Guide Dogs of America We started by first allowing him to feel the texture of grass for the first time and by letting him “get busy” on the grass. We also worked on simple things like teaching him to sit and wait before he ate his food. He got so good at his sit-stays and down-stays he could do them with his eyes closed…literally…

Derby is so good at down-stays he can do them with his eyes closed 🙂

Derby actually isn’t doing his down-stays with his eyes closed we just happened to catch him mid-blink 🙂

So what are a few things you should think about teaching your pup the moment you get home?

Puppy’s are adorable! We tend to let them get away with more than they should. I often times see people let their pups do things that will bite them in the ass when their puppy is older. Here are a few things you should think long and hard about before allowing your pup to form bad habits:

Jumping up on people – An adorable 7 week old 10 pound Labrador Retriever is pretty cute when jumping up on your leg for attention. If you allow him to do this he’s learning it’s okay to jump up on people. Now think how much you will enjoy this behavior when he’s an 80 lb adult dog!?

Sitting on your lap – That same 10 pound Lab puppy fits nicely on your lap, but can you say the same when he wants to sit there as an 80 lb dog?

Barking for attention – It might be cute when they have a little voice, but when they get that big dog voice it might not be so fun. I would avoid encouraging this behavior.

While your first day at home with your new puppy can be a lot of fun your puppy’s first night home can often be very difficult as it’s his first day away from his momma an litter mates. Here are a few tips just in case you’re having some issues with your pups first night at home.

If you’re looking for some more ideas on things you might want to do and not want to do on your first day of puppy training then check out one of our favorite puppy starter books, Puppies For Dummies (aff link).

So when did you start working on your puppy’s training? Did you start working on basic obedience skills from day 1? Tell us about your puppy training experiences in the comment section below.

About Colby

Colby Morita has raised guide and service dog puppies for Guide Dogs of America and Canine Support Teams. He's been writing to the PuppyInTraining.com blog and sharing his puppy training tips from his experiences as a guide dog puppy raiser since 2007.

Comments

Nice tips Colby. I have to admit that it is quite fun to have a new puppy which makes it even more important to teach them proper manners from the very beginning so as to avoid puppy problems from the very start.

By the way, I did mention about Whitey and Buchi no longer fighting right? Well, I was thinking that maybe it was I who was the root cause of the problem.

Puppy training started as soon as Kuster came home. And the first night he was there, he crawled over the baby gate and came right into the bedroom with the rest of us! lol It’s STILL a learning curve at our house. 😛